


you cut my wounds so deep (deeper than yours)

by tfm



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Injury, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24876268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tfm/pseuds/tfm
Summary: In which Skingorger left a cursed wound.Beau, Jester and Yasha go on a long journey in order to cure it.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Yasha, Jester Lavorre & Beauregard Lionett, past Yasha/Zuala - Relationship
Comments: 12
Kudos: 156





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part two in my "let's clear out the WIP folder" initiative.
> 
> I think I started writing this right after episode 86, and it thus diverges somewhat from that point. Imagine that in this universe, for one reason or another, they did not stick around in Rexxentrum, or go back to Xhorhas right after, for whatever reason, because that's the way I started writing it six months ago, and it's diverging from canon anyway.
> 
> Unsure on the actual violence content as yet, but there will be some pretty visceral descriptions of wounds, so take that as a warning. Potentially pre-relationship, but probably no actual shippy stuff.

I.

The first thing Yasha did when they returned to Zadash was find a blacksmith. She heaved over the hulking, rusted iron sword, and said, ‘Melt this down for me.’ They stared at her like she was crazy, because one needed only take a look at _Skingorger_ to know that it was not a normal sword.

‘What do you want done with the metal?’ they asked. Yasha didn’t know. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. She just needed the sword to be gone; with _Magician’s Judge_ once more attuned to her touch, she felt a little bit more like herself, a little bit less like Orphanmaker.

With _Skingorger_ , she had cut down countless lives, faces that would live on in her nightmares for many years to come.

‘Make something useful,’ she told them.

Back at the Leaky Tap (Yasha didn’t think she was quite ready to stay at the Cobalt Soul, even if Beau apparently did have accommodations there – just another something she had missed) Fjord gave her a look.

‘What?’ she asked, in perhaps a gruffer voice than he deserved. After all, he was in the right; they shouldn’t trust her. They never should have trusted her.

‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘I know a little something about destroying swords, is all.’ There was clearly a story there; new sword, new voice, new sort of glow to him. He looked healthier than he had done when she’d last seen him properly, probably because she’d sliced him open, and damn near killed him then.

‘Yes, well...’ Yasha said. She frowned. She hadn’t quite planned what to say on her return, after getting rid of the thing that had caused so much grief. It was only a symptom, she knew. Getting rid of the sword wouldn’t fix all the other problems, the ones that were inside of her. There was still an undercurrent of tension with Fjord, and, even if the other woman didn’t want to admit it, with Beau.

Beau had been keeping her distance since they’d all climbed out of the Cathedral, bleeding, broken, and beyond exhausted. Yasha could not fail to notice the way Beau limped long after she’d been healed, had stayed silent until she was prompted in the chambers of King Dwendal.

Even now….Beau had forgone staying at her Cobalt Soul chambers to join the rest of the party at the Leaky Tap, but had almost immediately retreated to the room she was sharing with Jester. Yasha was almost reminded of being here so long ago, only this time they had Caduceus instead of Molly.

Caduceus, for his part, was as stalwart as ever. He offered to be Yasha’s roommate with no hesitation, leaving Fjord to room on his own, or with Caleb and Nott. Yasha appreciated the vote of confidence, even if she thought it was misplaced. She had turned on them so easily, her attempts at resistance going as unnoticed as a child trying to slay a giant.

She was weak, and cowardly. She had always been weak, and cowardly.

Caduceus made tea.

‘Everyone’s real happy to have you back,’ he said, genially. ‘They’ve been very upset about you being gone.’ Yasha had no reason to disbelieve him, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to agree with his assessment. She had never been apart of the group in the same way that everyone else had. Had been gone far too often, and for far too long to consider herself as important as Fjord, or Jester, or Caleb.

She was just the muscle.

For the first night in a long time, Yasha was in control of her own mind. For the first night in a long time, when the nightmares came, she was enough in control of herself that she could wake from them. When she woke the next morning, it felt as though she had barely slept at all.

The rest of the group, save Beau, were already downstairs when Yasha arrived. She was standing in the doorway, still sort of hesitant, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

‘Morning,’ Beau said. She was smiling, but it looked almost forced.

Yasha was not the most insightful person, but even she could barely fail to notice the fact that Beau wasn’t wearing her standard crop top. The shirt she _was_ wearing looked almost cobbled together, as though its existence had been entirely unplanned.

The second thing that Yasha noticed, was that Beau was moving very slowly. Still. For all that she was not a caster of spells, Beau had always been the fastest of them, able to outrun and outmaneuver any of the rest of them with ease.

This morning though, as they ate breakfast at the _Leaky Tap_ , Beau was moving as though she was a hundred years old. She grimaced when she sat down.

‘Are you alright there, Miss Beau?’ Caduceus asked. Clearly Yasha wasn’t the only one that was noticing things.

‘Yeah,’ Beau said, with a grimace. ‘I’m fine.’ She swapped a quick glance with Jester, who, for some reason, looked very sad.

They all ate a considerable amount of food. It was always the way the day after battle, and given how rough the previous day’s battles had been, they ordered a veritable feast.

Beau seemed to gain some energy, perking up after her third serving of bacon, but Yasha’s attention had waned. For so long, she had been living on the scraps of whatever Obann had thought to feed her. A real meal was a gift from Kord.

Beau was last to finish her meal, by which time almost all of the others had returned to their rooms. The only ones left were Caduceus and Jester, the latter of which only left after a silent conversation consisting of mostly head nods and eyebrow movements from Beau.

Caduceus, on the other hand, seemed to realize that Yasha was hanging back, and gave her a nod before he, too left. It was strangely comforting, the idea that he trusted her to take care of something that he would normally do himself.

Shaking with every step, Yasha walked up to Beau, and put a hand to her shoulder. Beau flinched, and Yasha pulled her hand back, as though she had been struck by lightning.

_Stupid. So stupid, Yasha_.

‘Shit, sorry,’ Beau said, quickly. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’ She turned back to her plate, awkwardly. ‘Did you need something?’

‘Is everything okay?’

The pause that followed was far too long for Beau’s words to be anything but a lie. ‘Yeah,’ she grunted. ‘’m fine.’ As though the universe was trying to disprove her point immediately, she stood very quickly, and grimaced in pain at the movement. ‘Fuck!’ she breathed.

Yasha took a breath. _Don’t be a coward_. ‘Beau, I can see that something is wrong. Can you please…if it is something that is because of what I did, please tell me.’

‘Yasha…’ The look Beau gave just about broke Yasha’s heart. ‘Yasha, you really don’t want to see—’

‘Please,’ Yasha said, choking through tears. ‘Please show me.’

Hesitantly, Beau pulled back her shirt, and started unwrapping the bandages there. Even the bandages were stained with what looked like a mixture of blood and pus. There was a white-hot moment of agony in Yasha’s chest. Their recuperation in the Chantry had been so brief that Yasha had assumed the combined healing of Caduceus, and Jester, and herself (though minuscule) would have at the very least sealed Beau’s wounds. Instead, she was greeted with a horrific wound, that had, beyond any doubt, been made by _Skingorger._

Yasha had to physically stop herself from throwing up. She put a hand to her mouth, and stepped backwards.

The wound itself was a sickly green color, the skin surrounding it looking like it had withered and died. The blood was not flowing heavily, but oozed. From the pulsing of the wound alone, Yasha could see the hyper-fast pace of Beau’s heart.

She clenched her fist.

‘Jester...’

‘Jester’s cast every spell she can think of on it,’ Beau said. She sounded exhausted. Worse than that, she sounded defeated.

Even though she knew it was not going to help, Yasha put her hand to Beau’s shoulder, and cast _Healing Hands_.

Beau gave a tired smile. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘That feels a little better.’ She didn’t sound like she was lying, but Yasha knew she was. _Healing Hands_ was nothing compared to the magic of a cleric.

‘I…’ Yasha frowned. ‘Is there someone we can see? Something we can do? Beau, I…I cannot bear the thought of knowing that I hurt you in this way.’

‘Wasn’t you, Yash.’ Beau grimaced. ‘My plan was to talk to the Cobalt Soul, see if they can tell me anything about it.’

‘I…may I please come with you?’ For about half a second, Beau looked surprised. Yasha could not let Beau do something like that on her own. It did not occur to her until later that perhaps Beau would have taken Jester, or Caduceus.

‘Of course,’ Beau said. Yasha nodded. Beau’s trust meant more to her than anything else in the world at the moment. Perhaps only second to Beau’s safety.

They went to the Cobalt Soul after breakfast, and for about twenty minutes, Yasha had entirely – blissfully – forgotten that she might not have been welcome there.

Even surrounded by very armed and very angry looking monks, Yasha did not draw her sword.

_Could_ not draw her sword. She would rather let them kill her than spill a drop of blood in this place.

‘Stop!’ Beau pulled herself in front of Yasha. ‘Don’t you fucking dare touch her.’

‘Beauregard.’ Zeenoth’s voice was filled with the same world-weary exasperation it always seemed to be when dealing with Beau. ‘This person is responsible for the deaths—’

‘ _Yasha_ ,’ Beau interjected, ‘Was under a very mind control spell. She bears no responsibility for what happened here.’

‘You would stake your position on that?’

‘I would stake my life on it,’ Beau said, without a moment’s hesitation. Zeenoth gave a slight hand motion, and the guards stepped back. Even still, he was eyeing Yasha very intently. Yasha reached to her shoulder – the guards lifted their crossbows – and unbuckled the blade sheath.

‘Yasha—’ Beau started. Yasha held up a hand. ‘Here.’ She passed the sheathed _Magician’s Judge_ to Zeenoth. If Beau had not been injured, Yasha would have given it to her. ‘As long as I am here, you may keep my sword.’ She did not particularly _want_ to give it up, but there were more important things happening here than the fate of a sword.

‘You should have told him you needed it to walk,’ Beau said. ‘At least then, he might have offered to carry you.’ Yasha blinked. Then, she realized.

It was a joke.

‘You didn’t need to do that,’ Yasha said, softly. ‘He has every right to be upset.’

‘He shouldn’t be upset with _you_.’ Beau’s voice was shaking, and she looked…she looked _angry_. ‘You are not responsible for what happened her. It wasn’t your fault.’ She was talking about more than just the massacre of the Cobalt Soul.

‘Beauregard.’ The sound of Beau’s name drew both of their attention. A bald, dark-skinned elf in blue and grey Expositor’s robes walked towards them. Yasha saw Beau’s expression crack into a smile.

‘Dairon.’ Beau stepped forward, and hugged the other woman, wincing as she did.

The elf pulled away. ‘What is wrong? Have you been getting into fights again?’

Beau gave a shaky sort of laugh. ‘Sort of,’ she said. ‘Dairon, what do you know about cursed wounds?’

‘Not a great deal,’ the elf – Dairon – admitted. She regarded Beau with a curious sort of look. ‘There is someone that may be of more use to you, but we will have to take a bit of a trip.’

She led Beau and Yasha downstairs. ‘Now I am told that this is where you and your friends caused something of a ruckus last time.’

Beau grinned. ‘Yeah,’ she said. Yasha had no idea what they were talking about.

The plaque on the door that they walked through said “Rexxentrum.” Were they _going_ to Rexxentrum? After just having been there?

Apparently, yes.

…

Beau hobbled after Dairon as quickly as she could.

Even though their whole purpose for being here was to have someone examine the wound, there was still a strange part of her that wanted to downplay the severity of it, to pretend that it wasn’t as big as a problem as it actually was.

It was a pretty fucking big problem. Beau hadn’t even realized how big a one, until they had made it back to Zadash. Jester had tried casting _Cure Wounds_ , and _Greater Restoration_ , and all other manner of spells, to no apparent effect. The wound was…well, it was pretty fucking fucked.

Now, Dairon was taking them to…to who, exactly Beau wasn’t sure, until she saw the distinctinve, bright red pixie-cut of Yudala Fon, High Curator of the Rexxentrum Archive.

_Well, shit_.

Beau had only met Yudala Fon briefly, in the throne room of King Dwendal. It was a little embarrassing to be standing in front of them now, after all that had happened. At least now she wasn’t covered in Obann’s entrails.

Beau turned to Dairon, and was about to make a snide comment, like “I asked a question about cursed wounds, and you brought me to _them_?” But then, looking at the expression on Dairon’s face, they had figured out far more than what Beau had told them.

‘Expositor,’ Yudala greeted Dairon. They looked to Beau. ‘Expositor.’ They looked to Yasha. ‘Forgive me, I do not think that we have had the pleasure. You were in the throne room, yes?’

‘I am not important,’ Yasha said.

‘Her name is Yasha,’ Beau said, mildly angry at the mere suggestion that Yasha was not important, even though it was Yasha herself that had said it.

Dairon gave a half sort of nod. ‘Beauregard, if you would show the High Curator this wound of which you speak?’ Beau stared at her, startled. So they were going right into it, huh? Beau lifted her shirt, and for the second time that day, unwrapped the bandages around her mid-section. It looked just as gnarly as it had two hours ago.

Dairon stared at the wound, seemingly transfixed. ‘Who did this to you?’

‘One of the Chained Oblivion’s lackeys,’ Beau told her. It wasn’t exactly a lie. It definitely wasn’t the whole truth either, though. Dairon, for their part, seemed to know she was holding something back, but didn’t say anything. Beau didn’t dare turn around to look at Yasha.

Yudala put their hand to Beau’s shoulder, and an intense warmth that Beau had never felt before flowed through her entire body. The pain subsidized - far more than it did when anyone else had cast it - but when Beau pulled back her shirt, the wound was still there, sickly and green. ‘You’re a Cleric,’ Beau said. ‘Huh.’

‘We are not all monks.’ Yudala was frowning even as they spoke. They had expected, Beau realized, their powerful healing magic to heal the wound. In spite of its origins. ‘This is a wound beyond anything I have seen before. I may need to consult with Ioun directly.’

Beau snorted before she'd even really processed the words. After all, Caduceus spoke to the Wildmother. Jester spoke to the Traveler. Ioun was just…Being one of the official Gods of the Empire, it seemed so much more impressive. Shit. She should have become a Cleric. Yudala gave her a look. It was the sort of look that Beau had seen a hundred times before from people in the same robes. Mild (or maybe not so mild) exasperation. ‘This should tide you over in the meantime.’ Another wave of light passed through her, and for the first time Beau felt something different. It still wasn't healing the wound, but the pain seemed to subside considerably.

Beau breathed a sigh of something akin to relief. ‘Thanks,’ she muttered. Yudala gave a sad sort of smile that Beau had been the recipient of far too often today. It was a smile of pity, and she hated it.

Dairon seemed to share a silent moment with the Curator, which, for some reason, irritated Beau more than anything. ‘She’s not my mother, you know,’ she snapped at the person who was pretty much her boss. ‘If there’s a problem, you can tell me.’

‘How well versed are you in your history?’ Yudala asked, which was absolutely not the response that Beau had been expecting. ‘You recall the grave wound the Knowing Mistress suffered when sealing the Chained Oblivion?’

Beau snorted, realizing what ridiculous point he was trying to get at. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘And you think that I’ve suddenly somehow got the same eternal wound?’

‘A wound that will not heal, despite all the magic put into it? What other explanation would you give?’

Yasha made a pained sort of noise. Beau wanted to turn back to her, to tell her that it was alright. Shit, maybe bringing Yasha here had been a really fucking bad idea.

‘Well, the sword that did it was pretty fucking cursed.’ Beau chose her words carefully.

‘Where is the sword now?’

Beau shrugged. When they’d returned to Zadash, Yasha had wandered off, and returned without the _Skingorger_ , so she assumed that it had been either disposed of, or destroyed. She hadn’t expected that have to account for her battle wounds. She looked over towards Yasha, who had been watching the proceedings wordlessly. She looked like she was about to start crying. Shit. Fuck. Beau was such a godsdamned idiot.

‘Gone,’ Yasha said. There was a renewed sound of guilt to her voice, but before Beau could reassure her, Yudala was speaking again.

‘A pity. We may have been able to examine it.’ Yudala returned their attention to the wound. They seemed…unsure. Beau admittedly didn’t have a great deal of experience with the High Curator, but she was pretty sure that “unsure” was not a great sign.

‘What good would that have done?’ Beau muttered, not expecting a response. She should have known better, given the company she was in.

‘It is said that the only way to heal the Knowing Mistress is to destroy the Chained Oblivion.’

‘So I’ve gotta walk around with this gaping fucking hole until we can kill a god?’ Beau gave a harsh laugh. ‘Well fuck that.’

‘You are not actively dying,’ Dairon said. ‘That is some small favor, no?’

‘Yeah,’ Beau admitted. Even if the healing didn’t actually...well... _heal_ her wounds, it did at least relieve the pain for a little while. If she could just keep doing that…

‘Perhaps there is a poultice that may work a little better at relieving the pain,’ Yudala told her. ‘I will do some research, but…in the meantime, you are welcome to stay at the Rexxentrum archive for a while as we look for answers. My magic may provide a little stronger relief than the clerics in Zadash.’ They weren't trying to boast, but it still came out a little boastful. Beau didn't argue; she was feeling far better than she had in days, even if it wasn't quite to the standard of her pre-shanking self.

Admittedly, she didn't much like being in Rexxentrum. It felt claustrophobic and intimidating in a way that Zadash didn't. If she had to stay away from her friends, if she had to stay on extended bed rest, then at the very least she wanted to do it somewhere familiar.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘But no thanks.’


	2. Chapter 2

II.

It was a shitty way to live.

Beau was somehow who relied on her body for...well...everything (there was a joke somewhere in that). She was definitely a masochist, but even this was far more pain that she could handle. Every time she punched, or kicked, or swung her staff, the wound pulled. Her lungs ached, her body shook.

She could barely make it through half the exercises that she usually did of a morning. Even Fjord somehow managed more push-ups. _That_ was embarrassing.

‘You know, you don’t have to prove anything,’ he told her, and Beau couldn’t help but hear a smugness in his voice that probably wasn’t even there. ‘We all heal at our own pace.’

Beau rolled her eyes. It wasn’t really his fault. He didn’t know what she knew. About how maybe there was no healing, that this would just be something that would become her new normal.

It was ridiculous, really. Beau had never even _done_ a push-up until four years ago, when she’d arrived at the Cobalt Soul for the first time. Somehow, in that space of time, she’d transformed into a person who was proud of their body, and its achievements. To lose that all in one fell swoop, it…

Well, it fucking sucked.

It was less the fact that she was constantly in pain, and that it hurt to breath, but more the fact that there was no question of Beau going with the Mighty Nein back to Xhorhas. If something happened, then she was far too much of a liability in a fight.

There was too much to do, that was the problem.

They all but had a directive from no-one less than the King to go to Xhorhas, and arrange peace talks with the Bright Queen.

Beau had geared herself up to go, wanting promise of politics to distract her from the pain, and the exhaustion (a thought she had never in her life imagined having). Then, she’d spent the entire morning willing herself to just roll over and get out of bed.

When she finally managed it, she realized that it was well into the middle of the day. The rest of the group should have been out and about doing the things that they needed to do, but Beau was sure she could hear Fjord’s voice coming from the end of the hallway, in the room that he and Caleb and Nott had been sharing.

Then, she heard Jester’s voice. Jester, who had been rooming with Beau, who had no real reason to be having secret conversations in Fjord’s room, unless…

A sudden burst of energy overtook Beau. It was amazing the kind of painkiller than anger could be. She moved quicker in the next half a second than she had at any point in the last two days.

It didn’t take Beau very long to figure that they had been talking about her. For some reason, that made Beau angrier than anything else that had happened so far. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Don’t change your plans because of me. You go stop a war, and I’ll wait around here, trying not to die.’ She’d meant it as a dagger, but the moment she caught the look on Yasha’s face, she realized that a dagger was the wrong thing to be using right now. Yasha was already feeling guilty enough. ‘I’m sorry, that was a shitty thing to say.’

‘No, you’re right,’ Fjord admitted, speaking before any of the rest of them got a chance to. ‘We should have been discussing our plans with you here.’

It didn’t really make much of a difference. Beau knew, after all (even if it had taken her a while to come to terms with it) that she wasn’t going to be heading to any war councils in her current state. Xhorhas was the sort of place where things could turn on a silver very quickly.

‘So what’s your decision?’ Beau asked, and she was trying real fucking hard not to sound offended by the whole situation. What she _really_ meant was, “When do you leave?”

‘We’re not going to leave you on your own,’ Fjord said, and Beau had to admit, she was surprised. Over the years, she’d sort of gotten into the habit of being used up and thrown away by people. It had been the logical conclusion of the legend of the Mighty Nein, leaving behind their weakest link. Fjord, for all his obliviousness, didn’t fail to notice her expression. ‘Did you leave me behind when I was at my weakest?’

‘No,’ Beau admitted. But that was different. Fjord could still fight, even when he didn’t have magic. Beau didn’t think she’d be using a whip to restrain a remorhaz any time soon. She could barely even strap on her boots in the morning. ‘What about the war?’

‘Fuck the war.’

Beau shook her head. ‘No. We—you can’t drop that. We’ve been trying to stop this stupid godsdamned war from the start.’ Okay, maybe that wasn’t entirely true. They’d certainly probably done some things that prolonged the war, rather than shortening it. ‘We have to see it through.’

‘I could stay,’ Yasha offered, and Beau had to admit, she was surprised. Not nearly as surprised as when Yasha continued to speak. ‘You do not need me there, and I can make sure that Beau does not get into too much trouble.’

‘Then I should stay too!’ Jester interjected. ‘Beau, you need someone here to make sure that you can heal properly.’ That was hardly a necessity. After all, the heals didn’t actually do anything. But, the idea of having even the slightest bit of pain relief in amongst the agony _was_ appealing.

Jester and Yasha both had varying knowledge of just how bad things were. Jester, of course, had been trying to heal the wound since the day that they’d left Rexxentrum, and her inability to do so was clearly weighing on her heavily, but not nearly as much as the guilt seemed to weigh on Yasha.

The rest of the Mighty Nein didn't know about any of this. They _couldn't_ know. If they knew how bad it was, they would have stayed, and Beau wasn't about to keep them from their goals. They had better things to do than to babysit her. It was bad enough that Jester and Yasha wanted to stay behind.

‘That’s not a bad split,’ Fjord said. ‘One cleric in each group, with plenty of options for dealing damage. You can all do what needs to be done here, and the rest of us can meet with the Bright Queen.’

Beau opened her mouth to argue, but she knew before she’d even thought of what to say, that she would be outvoted. ‘What good would it do?’ she muttered, not expecting an answer.

‘The Cobalt Soul said that they weren’t sure what was going on,’ Caleb said. Beau shot a look at Yasha. Not an accusatory one, just…just a look. She did look a little sheepish. ‘I am sure there are plenty of other avenues to explore. They are not the arbiters of knowledge in all of Exandria.’

‘I mean, they _kinda_ are,’ Beau said. Caleb gave a careless wave of the hand. He was thinking, she knew, of the Cerberus Assembly. Beau really, really didn’t want to have to go to them.

‘Maybe Essek knows something that could help,’ Nott said. She was looking at Caleb, who didn’t even so much as react to the suggestion.

The rest of the group made their departure later that day. Caduceus couldn’t help but give Beau one last heal, and Caleb even hugged her of his own accord, taking care not to put too much pressure on her wound.

Beau wondered, vaguely, if they thought that this was the last time they would see her.

It would be better to be out in the world, risking death than waiting around for something to happen. As much as she'd grown to love the Archive, if she was going to die, it would be out in the world, doing something, rather than lying in a bed.

Hopefully not. Between Jester’s _Sending,_ and Caleb’s _Teleportation Circle_ , they would be able to get here pretty quickly if things took a turn for the worse.

She hated – _hated_ – the fact that she was already thinking in terms of worst-case scenarios. As though she was already on her way out.

They moved from the Leaky Tap to Beau’s quarters at the Cobalt Soul. Some of the monks still eyed Yasha warily, but none of them said anything.

The bed was easily big enough to sleep all three of them, but Yasha was strangely averse to this, and instead set out her bedroll at the foot of the bed, as though she was keeping watch while they slept. It took Beau a couple of nights to realize that she probably was.

Jester had been keeping in touch with the others, and advised that they would be _Teleporting_ to Nicodranas to attend peace talks on the ocean. ‘You should go,’ Beau told her, and Jester gave her a look.

‘Beeeeeau,’ she said, elongating the vowel sounds far more than they needed to be. ‘We’re not going to leave you here. Besides…how would I get to Nicodranas? I can’t _Teleport_.’

Beau immediately wanted to bring up the half a dozen ways Jester could have gotten to Nicodranas (message Essek, message Caleb, message Yussa, for starters), but decided against it. Instead, she got back to the only thing she’d really been doing in the time that they’d had.

Most of that time, she’d spent in the library. It took comparatively little effort to grab books off shelves and thumb through them for hours at a time. She even helped others with their research. Soon, they'd take away her Expositors robes and give her the boring grey Archivist ones.

Every morning, she did her usual routine, or at least tried to. In the beginning it was almost possible, if very, very slow. Now, it took twenty minutes to crank out five push ups, and even then, she was shaking, sweating and burning with agony. Once or twice, she’d had to stop altogether, and curl into the fetal position, clutching at her stomach. She told none of this to Jester or Yasha. If she told them, then they would tell the others, and distracting them from their mission was the last thing that they needed. It was hard enough finding a space where Jester wouldn’t find her.

On the fourth day, Beau got a message in her head.

Not from Jester, but from Yudala Fon, asking her to come to Rexxentrum to discuss matters.

Beau shut her book with a snap, and went off to find Yasha and Jester.

…

Yasha was glad that Jester had come with them to Rexxentrum this time. She had found it very awkward the last time, standing back while the three monks talked, and she had felt very helpless.

At least this time she would have company.

The energy this time was a little less subdued. Beau, whose mood had wavered considerably over the past few days, was in reasonably okay spirits. Perhaps it was the promise of some kind of answers from the Rexxentrum Cobalt Soul.

The look on Yudala Fon’s face, though, as they ushered the trio into their chambers, was not optimistic. It wasn’t pessimistic either, but rather neutral.

‘I have _Commun_ ed with Ioun,’ they said, speaking to Beau as though she were alone in the room. ‘She has proved frustratingly vague.’ Yasha could not help but snort. She was used to the vague instructions of Gods.

‘You didn’t call us here just for that,’ Beau said. It wasn’t a question. The High Curator could have mentioned all of that in a message.

‘I have also been researching _other_ remedies,’ they continued. Yasha remembered that they had mentioned poultices the last time. ‘I believe I have found some that maybe be of use.’ They handed Beau a scroll of parchment, and a small wooden box. Beau opened the box and stared at it.

‘I don’t know what any of these are,’ she said, and looked at Yasha and Jester in turn. Jester took the box, and made a face.

‘Caduceus is really better at this sort of thing,’ she said. Yasha looked inside. She recognized some of the plants in the box, but many of them were unfamiliar. There was one with tiny white petals, and a yellow center, that Caduceus had used to make tea many times.

‘I think we will be able to figure it out,’ Yasha said. She did have a book that Molly had given her, once upon a time, with lots of different kinds of flowers and medicinal plants in it.

‘There are a number of alchemical stores in Zadash that will have the ingredients you need,’ Yudala told them. ‘Those that cannot be bought can be foraged from in and around the Marrow Valley. ‘I’m sorry that it isn’t better news, Expositor.’ A sympathetic smile crossed their face. ‘I will continue to look, but this may tide you over in the meantime.’

‘Thank-you.’ Beau shook their hand. Yasha gave a stilted sort of nod. She wondered if the High Curator knew what she had done.

Back in Zadash, Yasha and Jester managed to figure out what all of the components in the box were, with only a quick message to Caduceus to confirm the ones that weren’t in the book.

There was a poultice, and a tea; the poultice, the scroll said, would help with inflammation, and the tea would help with the pain. _Definitely_ something that Caduceus would have been able to help with.

They mashed the poultice together with a mortar and pestle that Jester had bought from an alchemical supply store. Beau hesitated when it came to taking off her shirt, but finally relented when it became evident that Jester was willing to tear it off by force. Yasha half-expected Beau to make a flirtatious comment, and the fact that she didn’t was an indicator of how bad things had gotten.

The bandages, which Beau had taken to changing herself, were once more stained with blood and pus. The wound looked just as bad as it had when Yasha had first seen it. Jester leaned in for a closer look. ‘Jes, is that really necessary?’

‘Beau, why didn’t you tell me?’ Jester said. She was staring intently at the wound, and, until she pointed them out, Yasha hadn’t noticed the spidering red lines that spread from the wound. ‘That’s _really_ bad.’ She put a hand to Beau’s shoulder, and cast what looked like a very powerful healing spell. The lines seemed to recede a little, and Beau gave a choked sort of sigh.

‘I didn’t notice it,’ Beau admitted, softly. Her voice was strained, and Yasha believed her.

Beau grimaced as they spread the poultice over the wound, and rewrapped it with fresh bandages. She slept for a bit after that, and Yasha wasn’t sure whether it was her imagination or not, but she seemed to be sleeping much easier.

The poultice was a temporary fix, of course.

Yasha knew that if they wanted to help Beau, they would have to find something far more permanent.

…

Beau had nightmares.

It wasn’t the first time she’d dreamed of getting run through the gut by _Skingorger_ , and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Now that she was pretty much constantly sharing a room with Yasha and Jester, though, she’d learned how to wake from them quietly.

In the dreams, the sword was somehow larger and more menacing than it had been in real life, dripping with acid, and burning holes through the ground as it was dragged along.

As shitty as the dream was, it sparked an idea in Beau’s head. An idea so blindingly obvious, she kicked herself for not having thought of it before. It wasn’t surprising, really. They were all looking at the symptom, rather than the cause.

‘So, I was thinking.’ Beau sat down, wincing as she did. It was kind of just a thing, now. She’d eaten maybe a little bit too much for breakfast, and the pain was always worse when she was full. ‘I’ve been scouring the books at the library, looking for stuff on wounds.’ Yasha and Jester listened patiently. They knew, of course, what she’d been researching. They had both joined her for it at one point or another, Jester getting bored halfway through one book, and Yasha being surprisingly good at it. ‘What I really should have been looking for was stuff on swords. Yasha, how much do you know about _Skingorger_?’

‘Oh.’ Yasha seemed surprised. ‘Um. It was old, and magical. I…’ She faltered. ‘Obann said something once; but I can’t…He said that the Many Hosts would be pleased at what _Skingorger_ was being used for. I do not know what he meant by that.’

‘Hmm,’ Beau said. The Many Hosts. She didn’t know who or what the Many Hosts were, but it did sound ominous. ‘I hate to bring it up,’ she said, ‘But ah…wherever it is you took the sword – do you think there’s a chance they’ve still got it?’

‘Oooh!’ Jester said, suddenly. ‘I could cast _Legend Lore_. I don’t think we even _need_ the sword for that, but maybe we will have to go to Pumat’s so I can buy supplies.’

Beau hesitated. ‘I think it would be worth while to have the sword anyway,’ she said. Yasha’s expression remained stony.

‘Yes,’ she said, finally. ‘If there is anything we can do to make sure we can reverse the…curse? I will do it.’

Beau put a hand to her shoulder. It was the first time she’d felt like they were making some kind of progress about this whole situation.

‘Thank-you,’ she said.


	3. Chapter 3

III.

They split up. Jester went to Pumat’s, and Beau and Yasha went back to the Blacksmith to see if they still had the sword.

It wasn’t that Beau didn’t trust Yasha. She just figured that Yasha maybe needed more emotional support than Jester, who was buying incense and ivory.

‘You _do_ remember where you went, right?’ Beau asked, after they had been wandering through the streets of Zadash for almost an hour. At first, Yasha had been reasonably confident about where to go, but after a while, Beau had her doubts.

‘I…I am still not really used to spending a lot of time in cities,’ Yasha admitted. ‘It is around here somewhere; I am sure of it.’ It took another twenty minutes to find it, tucked in an alleyway behind a cart selling some kind of meat on a stick.

The proprietor was a dwarven man with a beard that looked like it had gotten burned by the forge more than once. From the look on his face, he definitely recognized Yasha. ‘Are you here to take your sword back?’ he asked, grunting in between swings of the hammer. ‘Because it’s of no use to me.’

‘Why not?’ Beau was immediately curious.

‘Couldn’t melt it down,’ he shrugged. He turned over the bit of metal on the anvil, and continued hammering. ‘Not uncommon with some magic items. You’d have to dispel the enchantment to melt it down, and forgive me for saying, the metal’s probably not good enough to be worth it. Lots of rust. Not a great alloy.’ He finished up hammering. It sounded a bit like an excuse to Beau, but she didn’t know enough about smithing to be able to dispute it.

The dwarf reached under the counter, and pulled out the sword. Beau saw Yasha flinch out of the corner of her eye. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said, before Yasha could do anything.

It was heavy, that was Beau’s first thought. She doubted she’d be able to do much damage with it; the swing alone would probably take everything out of her.

The second thing she noticed was the darkness. The sword felt…well… _evil_ in her grasp. She couldn’t help but shudder. Yasha gave a knowing look.

There were so many things that Beau wanted to ask, like _was it always like this_? or _how did you stand it_? but she wasn’t so socially oblivious that she was going to put her foot in it that badly. Yasha clearly wanted nothing to do with the sword, and it was only to help Beau that she had agreed to get it back.

Or maybe that wasn’t giving Yasha enough credit.

They met Jester in the Pentamarket, and Beau gladly handed the sword over. Jester wrapped it in her cloak, and carried it over her shoulder as if it weighed nothing at all. Beau couldn’t help but stare in awe. She’d always known that Jester was strong (and had probably snuck a peak at her muscles more than was appropriate), but it felt like Jester probably could have wielded a sword of that size with almost as much ease as Yasha.

‘Did you get what you needed?’

‘Of course!’ Jester said, brightly. ‘Pumat was _so_ happy to see me, he was like “Oh my gosh, Jester, I had such a good time fighting with you guys in Rexxentrum, and even though I got really messed up, I would totally do it again!” He still looked a little hurt,’ Jester added, guiltily. Beau could empathize.

They took the sword back to the Cobalt Soul. As they were making their way to Beau’s Expositor’s quarters, they ran into Dairon.

‘Beauregard,’ she said, in that familiar yet formal voice. They saw the large object wrapped in the cloak over Jester’s shoulder. ‘Is that the sword?’

‘Yeah,’ Beau said.

‘This was your sword?’ Dairon directed the question towards Yasha, and Beau was just about to take a step forward to get between them, but Dairon raised a hand. ‘I did not mean it in an accusatory way. I have been informed of the sequence of events from the High Curator.’

Yasha seemed to relax, but only slightly. ‘May I examine it?’ Dairon asked. Both Yasha and Jester seemed to look to Beau for an answer.

‘Sure,’ Beau said. Jester heaved the sword into Dairon’s waiting hands, and Beau could not help but chuckle slightly when the elf buckled under its weight. They were neither of them swordfighters.

‘The fiend that was controlling Yasha mentioned “many hosts,” in relation to the sword,’ Beau commented. ‘You don’t know what that is, do you?

‘My first thought would be the Many Hosts of Igrathad,’ Dairon said. ‘In Xhorhas.’ They set the sword on the ground, and unwrapped it then and there.

‘Igrathad,’ Beau murmured. The name did sound vaguely familiar. Like something she had read in a book once upon a time.

‘It is a collection of villages housing mostly goblins and orcs,’ Dairon explained.

‘This sword is from Igrathad?’ Yasha asked. Her voice had a strange tone to it that Beau had never heard before.

‘It is possible,’ Dairon admitted. ‘There are a many great warriors in Igrathad, it would not be beyond their skill.’ They stood, and looked to Jester. ‘I think your spell will be able to tell you far more than I could.’

Beau didn’t bother asking how Dairon knew that they were about to cast a spell. They gathered the sword back up in the cloak, and handed it back to Jester.

‘How are you?’ Dairon asked. Beau blinked. _Oh yeah_. She had almost kind of forgotten about the horrific wound in her gun.

The poultice was doing its job, for the most part. Moreover, though, she hadn’t really noticed it, because she’d been distracted by having a direction for them to move in. Now that Dairon mentioned it though, Beau remembered that Yasha had walked very slowly for her to be able to keep up, remembered how difficult it was to breathe. What she said, though, was: ‘Fine.’

Dairon gave a skeptical look. ‘Come and see me before you leave,’ they said, and walked off. Beau raised an eyebrow. None of them had mentioned leaving, though Beau guessed that Dairon had gotten pretty good at reading her.

Inside Beau’s room, Yasha got the fire going. It was a strangely chilly night, for Thunsheer, or maybe it was the fact that Beau had been having trouble staying warm, ever since It had happened.

‘Hey Yasha,’ Jester said. ‘When Dairon mentioned Igrathad, you got all weird. Do you know where that is?’

Yasha did not speak straight away. Beau realized, suddenly, that there were tears in her eyes. ‘Ah, it is very close to…to the Iothia Moorland. To where my tribe is from.’ Yasha clenched her fist slightly. ‘Zuala would be buried near there.’ Zuala. Yasha’s wife.

Beau felt a strange feeling rise in her stomach, that had nothing to do with the horrible wound in her stomach. Something akin to sadness.

‘Well, we could kill two birds with one stone,’ Beau offered, before wincing. ‘Shit, bad choice of words. I mean, if you want to go there, we can go there.’

There was a very, very long pause. Yasha’s voice, when she spoke, was so soft that Beau had to lean in to hear it. ‘I think I would like that,’ she said. She cast a glance to her pack, to where Beau knew that there was a leather-bound book filled with flowers.

‘Wait, you want to _go_ to Igrathad?’ Jester asked. ‘Beau, are you sure, you—I mean, it’s a really long way, right?’

‘You can message Essek,’ Beau said, in an offhand sort of voice. There wasn’t really a question of _if_ they would go to Igrathad. They _had_ to go to Igrathad, if only to help assuage Yasha’s guilt.

Yasha remained silent as Jester cast the spell. Her eyes glazed over white, and Beau couldn’t help but stare. Man, research would be so much easier if she could just cast a spell, and get the information put straight into her mind.

‘Oh, _man_ ,’ Jester breathed, about ten minutes later. ‘That was something. Okay, so like, we were right, it _is_ from the Many Hosts of Igrathad, and it was wielded by a super stinky ogre guy hundreds of years ago, but then it was taken from him in conquest by the Skyspear.’

Yasha made a noise. Not a good noise. A pained noise.

‘Yasha?’

‘I…The Skyspear was…the head of my tribe. The Dolorav tribe. She is the one that ordered Zuala’s execution.’

‘ _She_ used to have this sword?’ Jester’s voice was soft. ‘Holy shit.’

Beau was regretting, suddenly, their barely discussed decision to go to Igrathad. It was one thing to go on the search for Zuala’s grave, but if their quest for answers took them back to the Dolorav Tribe, to something that Yasha had been trying to desperately get away from for so long…Beau didn’t want to force that on her.

An awkward sort of tension filled the room. Beau left Yasha and Jester there to do whatever it was they needed to do while she went to the library. She found as many books as she could on the Many Hosts of Igrathad, and on the Dolorav Tribe. Part of her felt a little like she was intruding on Yasha’s life, but it was a bit of a moot point; there was a great deal more on the first subject than there was on the second. The Dolorav Tribe, Beau gathered, were not exactly the sort of group whose exploits made it into a library in Zadash.

Around four o’clock, midway through a book on the geography of Xhorhas, Beau felt a ripple of pain through her chest, and it suddenly became very hard to breathe.

It had been a while since Jester had healed her, which meant it was probably time to put the books away for the day. She’d managed to make about a dozen pages of notes in her journal, the pages of which were looking very blurry.

Beau had been knocked unconscious in combat enough to know that that wasn’t a very good thing, and she had just barely made it back to the tower where the Expositors quarters were, when she felt the nausea rising in her stomach.

_Where was her door? Surely it wasn’t that far away?_ Beau had thumped on the first two doors to no avail. It didn’t occur to her that banging on random doors wasn’t the best way to find her own room.

Somehow, it worked, but not in the way Beau had expected. She wasn’t even sure that she had expected anything at all.

The noise was what brought Yasha and Jester running from the room. ‘Beau!’ Jester said. Beau’s face split into half a grin, before she fell forward and vomited all over Jester’s feet.

Warm hands touched her face, and it was the nicest thing she had felt in a long time.

That was the last thing that Beau remembered before she passed out.


	4. Chapter 4

IV.

Beau was asleep.

Yasha was pretty sure it was just asleep. In any case, her breathing had eased slightly, and as soon as they’d gotten some healing into her, and changed the poultice, she seemed to improve.

She was kicking herself that they hadn’t done anything.

Beau had seemed fine when she’d gone down to the library, leaving Jester and Yasha to start getting their bags packed for the journey, and figure out anything else that they might need. Now, Yasha regretted not having gone with her.

It had seemed safe enough, being in the library, and Beau did seem like she had been showing improvement. Then, she had collapsed in the hallway, with Yasha just barely catching her before she hit the ground.

‘We need to go to Igrathad,’ Yasha whispered softly, as she stroked Beau’s hair. It wasn’t a conscious movement, but it somehow grounded her.

Jester looked worried. ‘Are you…I mean, are you okay with that?’

Yasha watched the slow rise and fall of Beau’s chest. ‘I have to be,’ she said.

It was another couple of hours or so before Beau woke up, by which point the sun had well and truly set. She seemed a little groggy, but otherwise aware of what was going on. ‘This is getting worse, isn’t it?’ she asked, and the strained silence that followed was answer enough. ‘ _Fuck_.’

‘We should leave as soon as possible,’ Yasha said. ‘If there are answers anywhere, they will be in Igrathad.’

Jester nodded. ‘I’ll message Essek,’ she said. ‘He _really_ loves us, so I’m sure it will be okay.’ Yasha wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but she didn’t disagree. Teleportation was the fastest and easiest way for them to get where they needed to go. She closed her eyes. ‘ _Heeeey_ Essek, it’s me, Jester. We need to get to somewhere in Xhorhas, it’s _super_ urgent maybe Caleb told you that Beau was really sick, and we need to take her to Igrathad. How many was that?’ These last words, she directed to Yasha and Beau. ‘Fjord usually keeps count.’

Yasha opened her mouth to say, “I don’t know,” but was beaten to it by Beau. ‘That was like thirty.’

‘Oh, man,’ Jester muttered. Half a second later, she straightened, and Yasha knew that she was receiving a response. ‘Okay,’ she said, after a minute or so. ‘We have to leave Zadash, because he’s an important guy from Xhorhas and there’s still a war going on. He says that he’ll meet us…three miles south of Zadash off the Amber Byway, and he will be able to Teleport us from there.’

‘Will you be able to walk three miles?’ Yasha asked Beau, who gave a light scoff.

‘Of course I can,’ Beau said, and she sounded almost offended by the comment. ‘Besides.’ She grinned, but it was a tired sort of grin. ‘If I pass out, you can just carry me.’

Jester messaged Essek again, and told him that they would meet him south of Zadash the following morning. It was important that all of them – and Beau especially – get as much sleep as possible before they set off.

Yasha did not sleep well that night.

She had known, of course, that she would one day make it back to the Iothia Moorlands (she was hesitant to say “make it back home”), but now that the inevitability of it was looming before her, it felt much worse.

When she did sleep, it was fraught with nightmares. Nightmares of Zuala dying, of Mollymauk dying, of almost killing Beau. Nightmares of them all blaming her.

She woke with a gasp.

It was very dark outside. Well past midnight, Yasha was sure. She could see the edges of soft moonlight through the window.

‘Bad dreams?’ came a voice, and Yasha jumped. She had not expected anyone else to be awake. She looked to the window, and realized that Beau was sitting there, staring out at the stars.

‘Ah, they are…’ Yasha hesitated. ‘Yes, they were bad.’

‘Do you have the nightmares a lot?’ Beau was not looking at Yasha. Her expression looked a thousand miles away.

‘Yes,’ Yasha admitted. ‘Of hurting you, and hurting Fjord, and everyone else. Of the massacre at the Cobalt Soul, and of everything else that he made me do…’ She trailed off. ‘Sometimes the Stormlord is kind enough to give me dreams of a different sort, but they are few and far between.’

‘That…’ Beau started. She seemed to think very hard on her words. ‘That really fucking sucks. But it wasn’t you, right?’

‘It wasn’t,’ Yasha agreed. ‘But if my mind had been a little stronger, if I’d been able to control myself…things might not have happened the way they did.’

‘I mean,’ Beau offered, ‘That works both ways, y’know. If we’d been able to stop Obann from charming you, then he never would have taken you, and you never would have done that stuff. So in a way, the rest of us have every right to feel guilty as well.’ Yasha gave her a look, and finally – _finally_ – Beau looked back.

‘That is not how that works.’

‘No? If I’d grabbed you, instead of Fjord, then we could have broken the charm then and there. If we’d grabbed you in the Lotusden Greenwood, then we could have helped you then. Instead, we ran. We ran off and did a bunch of other bullshit instead of trying to help you, and that’s on us.’

There was something else that Yasha noticed in Beau’s words. ‘The Lotusden Greenwood?’ she asked. ‘I…I do not remember going there.’

She would have remembered. _Should_ have remembered, given how close the Greenwood was to the Iothia Moorlands. She had never set foot in the Greenwood, but had heard many stories from other members of her tribe, about the dark fae magics that dwelled there.

Yasha closed her eyes and tried to remember, but each time she reached out a hand and grasped at a memory, it slipped through her fingers.

‘Obann had to get the heart of the Inevitable End,’ Beau told her. ‘We were trying to stop him. It…got a little violent, I guess.’

Yasha frowned. ‘Did I hurt anyone?’

‘No,’ Beau said. Very quickly. Far too quickly. Yasha gave her a look. ‘Okay, fine, you got a couple of swipes in. Nothing I couldn’t sleep off.’ The words did very little to reassure Yasha.

‘Did they scar?’

Beau suddenly seemed to realize the direction Yasha’s mind was heading. ‘Oh yeah. Weird that those ones healed, and yet…’ She gestured to her midsection. ‘Reminds me. We should probably do the poultice again.’ She was in pain, then. She only seemed to be proactive in putting the poultice on if the wound was hurting.

It wasn’t until Yasha was halfway through spreading the poultice that Beau spoke again. ‘Fjord’s wounds didn’t have this happen to them, either,’ she said. ‘Or Zeenoth’s.’

Yasha was momentarily confused. ‘Who is Zeenoth?’

Beau bit her lip. ‘He’s, ah…one of the Archivists at the Cobalt Soul. The one that…’ Beau didn’t finish her sentence, but then, she didn’t need to. _The one that had wanted to arrest Yasha._

She should have let him. At least then, there would be some kind of justice. At least then, Yasha could feel like her soul was a little bit redeemed, even if it was a false redemption.

‘The nightmares were the worst, after that,’ Yasha admitted. She began wrapping bandages around the poultice. Beau sat up, so that they could go around behind. ‘It was all…blurry. I was stuck in my head, and all I could see was a lot of people wearing blue. I was so afraid that I had killed you. Then, in the cathedral…’ Yasha did not realize that she was crying until she choked on her sobs. ‘I saw you, and was so relieved, but then…’

This statement, she did not finish, and did not need to. The wound was still very fresh in both their minds, and would be for some time.

‘Shit,’ Beau muttered. ‘We’re pretty fucked up, huh?’

‘Yes,’ Yasha agreed, wiping the tears from her cheek. ‘Pretty fucked up.’

There was a long pause. ‘This might be like…a weird question, but…do you want to hold me?’ Beau asked. ‘While we sleep, I mean. Just so you can feel that I’m still there.’ Even in the dimness of night, Yasha could see that her cheeks were slightly red.

‘Well I could,’ Yasha said. ‘But it will cost you five gold.’ In a split second, the tension seemed to crack, and, grinning, Beau throw her pillow at Yasha. Yasha could not help but smile.

‘Come on, then.’ Beau beckoned Yasha up to the bed where Jester was still fast asleep. ‘Let’s say ten gold, and I won’t even hog the sheets.’

In spite of everything in her mind screaming at her not to, Yasha got into the bed. ‘You may need this.’ She handed Beau’s pillow back to her.

‘You’re right, I may need to throw it at you again.’ Beau shuffled under the blankets next to Yasha. On the other side of the bed, Jester stirred slightly. Too late, Yasha realized that she was in the middle. It would be very difficult for her to sneak out once Beau was asleep.

It wasn’t that she _wanted_ to sneak out. She just…she didn’t deserve this. Didn’t deserve this kindness. ‘I don’t…’ Yasha was unsure what to do with her hand. She didn’t want to aggravate Beau’s wound in anyway. ‘Where do I put my hand?’

Beau gave a light chuckle. ‘Have you ever danced before?’

‘I…what?’ Yasha didn’t understand the question. They had danced in her tribe, of course, but she did not see how that related to what was happening now.

‘Uh…Just on my shoulder is fine.’ Beau seemed disappointed that Yasha hadn’t understood the reference. Yasha had half a mind to ask her, but before she could, she realized that Beau had already fallen asleep.

…

Their journey the next morning started slowly. The full night’s rest had given Beau a respectable modicum of energy, which had all but disappeared by the time they’d finished breakfast.

Before they set off, Jester changed out the poultice again, and pumped some healing magic into Beau’s shoulder. ‘Thanks,’ Beau smiled. She hated that she had become so dependent on other people, but at the same time, it was kind of nice to know that she had friends that were willing to drop everything to help her.

‘We’ll have to pick up some more of these plants before we go,’ Jester said. ‘I don’t know how much of it we’ll be able to find in Igrathad.’ She looked to Yasha, the question in her eyes.

‘Ah…there are not many flowers that grow there at all,’ Yasha explained. ‘There are reeds, and marshlands, and some trees, but…not a lot of medicinal plants.’

They found an alchemy shop in the Pentamarket, and bought enough for at least a dozen applications of the poultice. They didn’t know how long they would be in Xhorhas for, nor whether or not they would be able to find what they were looking for. For some reason, this put Beau in a dour mood.

‘What is wrong?’

‘Nothing, I just…I just hate being a burden, I guess.’

‘You could never be a burden.’ Yasha had clearly meant it in the most matter-of-fact way possible, but somehow, they seemed to have great effect. Beau smiled, and there was a little more energy in each step she took.

It did not last.

They were a mile out of Zadash before Beau had to take a break. She was sweating, and exhausted, and could feel the wound pulsing with every beat of her heart. It wasn’t even a tough walk; for the most part, things were pretty flat.

Beau drank heavily from her waterskin, and ate four sticks of jerky in a row. She would have gladly eaten more, but she knew if she ate too much, she would start feeling sick again. Her body had very much made it know that it did not like too much food, but nor was it a fan of too little food.

‘Why—’ she breathed, heavily. ‘—why did Essek insist on meeting us three miles out of town?’

‘I guess because he didn’t want to run the risk of being caught in Zadash,’ Jester shrugged. ‘Though I’m _preeeetty sure_ he has a way to disguise himself.’

‘Do you want me to carry you?’ Yasha asked, and Beau realized that she was deadly serious. Beau had woken that morning with Yasha’s arm protectively curled around her waist, about a foot from where it had started when they’d gone to sleep. It had been nice.

‘I think I’ll be fine,’ Beau gritted, and she almost was. She made it another six hundred feet or so before faltering, and Yasha did not even hesitate before scooping Beau up into what was clearly a bridal carry.

‘What, no over-the-shoulder this time?’ Beau asked, and it hurt to even do that much.

Yasha stared at her blankly. ‘That would aggravate your wound.’

Oh. Yeah, it probably would. Even this way wasn’t great, but it was a damn sight better than having to walk. Jester, the little shit, gave a conspiring wink that Yasha didn’t even notice. Or if she did, she ignored it.

Even with Yasha carrying Beau, it was slow going. There was only so fast that Yasha could walk carrying a near dead weight, and Jester had to slow her pace to match them.

Consequently, it was almost eleven before they made it to the rendezvous point. Essek was standing in the shade of a tree, clearly suffering in a bright daylight that he was unused to.

He seemed unsurprised to see that Yasha was carrying Beau; clearly there had been conversation between him and the rest of the party.

‘Essek!’ Jester said brightly. ‘How are peace talks going?’

That, he seemed mildly surprised at. ‘They are still some weeks away. It will take some time, after all, for the ships to arrive at the designated meeting point.’

‘Oh.’ Jester sounded disappointed, and Beau didn’t really blame her. It seemed like a bit of an anticlimax after everything else that had happened.

‘Your message cut off near the end,’ he said, failing to hide the resignation in his voice. ‘Where is it that you wish me to take you?’

‘We want to go to the Many Hosts of Igrathad!’ Jester told him, and Essek raised an eyebrow. ‘We think there might be something there that can help Beau.’

‘Are you familiar with that place?’ Yasha asked. Essek didn’t answer straight away.

‘Yes,’ he said, finally. ‘I have traveled there once before.’ It was a good thing, Beau thought. She remembered the time had _hadn’t_ been familiar with a place he was taking them. It hadn’t been a comfortable experience. ‘Are you ready?’

Beau tapped Yasha on the shoulder. ‘You can put me down now,’ she said. Yasha put her down, and her legs swayed just a little, but she managed to stay upright. ‘Alright.’ Beau gave Essek a look. ‘Now we’re ready.’


	5. Chapter 5

V.

Igrathad was…not what Beau had expected.

She wasn’t even sure what she had expected. She had heard Yasha talk about her homeland, however briefly, and she had seen the north of Xhorhas, Asarius, and Rosohna, and the Barbed Fields…this was something else entirely.

It was greener than Beau had expected. The way that Yasha marveled at all the plant life they came across, Beau had expected it to be…well, not quite as green. She could sort of empathize with Yasha’s point of view, in that regard. Kamordah wasn’t very green at all. There were some things that grew really, really, well, but most other things didn’t really grow at all. It hadn’t taken Beau long to get sick of the sight of grapes.

Not far away, there was what looked like a small village, made up of large yurts. ‘That is the village of Wrathfall,’ Essek told them. ‘One of the seven that makes up the Many Hosts of Igrathad. Most of its inhabitants are human, or at least humanoid.’ He paused. ‘I do not think I would be welcome there.’

‘Why not?’ Jester asked. ‘Essek, you’re so cool, I’m sure they would like you as much as we do.’ Essek wiped his brow. He did not look very comfortable in the sunlight.

‘The representatives of each of the villages report directly to the Kryn,’ he explained. ‘As a result of the war, many able-bodied warriors from here have been sent north, to hold the front. I have heard that…this was not taken favorably by many of the citizens here, for better or for worse.’

Beau had to admit, that _was_ a pretty good reason. ‘Can’t you disguise yourself?’ Jester asked. ‘Like, this one time, Caleb made himself look like a blue tiefling when we were in Asarius, and we just pretended that he was my brother.’

‘I am afraid I do not have that capability at this time,’ Essek said, smoothly, and Beau was pretty sure that he was lying. ‘Good luck on your quest.’ He went a little way away to a patch of grass that was mostly flat, and began to inscribe a _Teleportation Circle_.

‘How are you doing, Beau?’ Jester asked. ‘Do you need healing again?’

‘Nah, man, I’m good.’ Being able to sit down would be nice, but it would probably be suspicious if they just sat down right here, when the village was so close. There would no doubt be people on guard, watching for any sign of attacking forces.

They started off towards Wrathfell (which, by the way, was a totally fucking dope name for a village). Though it had seemed barely a few hundred feet away, the terrain was a little rockier than Beau had anticipated. Instead of asking Yasha to carry her, though, she used her staff as a walking stick. Either way, it was slow going.

A couple of what looked like the Aurora Watch soldiers were savvy to their presence. They did not draw their weapons as the group approached, but had their hands on their hilts, nonetheless. ‘Are you here to cause trouble?’ they asked. Speaking Common interestingly enough. Beau would have thought that Undercommon might have been the language of choice, at least for the Aurora Watch. Like Essek, they did not look particularly comfortable in the sunlight.

On a hunch, Beau rummaged around in her pockets for the symbol of the Bright Queen. They hadn’t had to use it in a hot minute, and it probably wouldn’t do much good with the citizens here, but the deployed members of the Kryn military was another matter altogether. ‘We’re here on important business,’ she said. Their hands snapped from their hilts almost immediately, and they straightened as though to make themselves look important.

‘Of course. Is there anything that we can do?’

Beau shared a look with Yasha and Jester. Fjord, and, to a lesser extent, Caleb, usually did the “face of the group” sort of stuff. Beau chimed in sometimes, but mostly only when she could use her credentials to her advantage. ‘We, ah…we have this sword.’ She gestured towards Jester, who was still carrying the wrapped sword over her back. ‘We believe that it was made somewhere in Igrathad, or for someone in Igrathad, a long time ago. We’re trying to destroy it.’ They looked a little startled, and Beau had to admit, it was an unusual sort of request.

‘Let me take you to Denethar,’ one of the guards said. He had the distinctive dark-purple skin of the drow, and a shock of white hair that curled below his ears. Both he, and the other guard were wearing large hats that barely seemed to be doing much to help them against the sun.

The guards led them to the largest of the yurts, which wasn’t saying much, given that there were fewer than a dozen of them.

Inside the yurt, was roughly furnished. The little furniture that was there seemed to have been roughly hewn from thick tree branches. Whoever had made it hadn’t even bothered to cut it into planks. There were two figures at a table, one a heavily muscled man wearing leather armor, and the other an exasperated looking Drow woman, wearing livery that would not have been out of place in the court of the Bright Queen. They looked up as the group entered.

‘Denethar,’ One of the guards nodded, first to the man, then to the woman. ‘Forgive the intrusion, these travelers are seeking—’ He stopped speaking abruptly as Denethar stepped forward. Even in the dim light of the yurt, Beau could see him cast a look over their small party. First to Beau, half-clutching at her stomach, then to Jester, enormous wrapped sword over her shoulder, and finally to Yasha. Yasha was skulking in the back, clearly trying to make her presence as inconspicuous as possible. He frowned.

‘Orphanmaker?’ he said. ‘Is that you?’

Beau’s hand immediately went to her staff, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Jester getting ready to cast a spell. Behind her, Yasha gave a sharp intake of breath.

‘Anyone who calls me by that name is asking for me to sign their death warrant,’ Yasha said, coolly. The tension in the room immediately tightened. The man – Denethar – put up a hand to the guards, who had gone for their hilts once more.

‘My apologies…Yasha.’

Beau turned around. She needed to see the look on Yasha’s face. It was…mostly confusion, with a very sort of distant recognition. ‘I know you.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘You…you were exiled from the Dolorav Tribe, many years ago. We hunted together several times.’

‘As I heard, you were exiled yourself.’ He laughed. ‘Though I was very glad to hear that you went back and put them to task for it.’

‘I…what?’ Yasha’s brow was furrowed. She clearly had no idea what this man was talking about. ‘What do you mean, put them to task for it?’

‘You slaughtered the Skyspear, for what she did to you. I’ll tell you, I was practically cheering when I heard the news. You are very much welcome here, Yasha, for your part in the decimation of the Dolorav Tribe.’

Yasha stared at him, open mouthed.

Then, she turned around and ran.

Denethar looked stunned. ‘I…what did I say?’

‘Uh…it’s a long story,’ Beau said. There was a very protracted silence. ‘I…we’ll be right back.’ She shared a look with Jester, who nodded, and they both left the yurt in pursuit of Yasha.

On any given day, Beau would have been faster. Before she had been stabbed through the gut by a cursed blade, and had her very livelihood ripped from her, she could have outrun anyone.

It was not difficult to see where Yasha had gone. It was a very small village, and there was a lone tree off in the distance, that a fleeing figure was running towards.

Jester was at least fifty feet ahead of Beau before they’d even really gotten started. Then, Jester seemed to make a decision, and came to a very sudden halt. She grabbed Beau by the shoulder, and cast _Dimension Door_.

They arrived at the tree at the same time that Yasha did, and Beau felt a wave of pain ripple through her. She clenched her fingers around her staff tightly, and sort of crumpled to the ground. ‘ _Fuck_!’

Both Yasha and Jester were at her side in half a second, and Beau realized, hilariously, how much fun she could have been having with this. Two very attractive women at her beck and call. ‘I’m good,’ she muttered. ‘I’m just gonna sit here for a bit.’ She patted the ground next to her. ‘Come join me.’ Jester sat down, and half a second later, Yasha did too.

‘Hey Yasha,’ Jester said. ‘Did you know that guy?’

They had all very clearly heard Yasha say that she knew him, but Jester was asking far more than just that. It was an invitation for Yasha to tell as much, or as little as she liked.

Yasha did not speak straight away. ‘I do not think I ever came this far west,’ she said. ‘It is strange, to know that there was grass, and trees, and things of such great beauty so close, and yet I never saw it.’

There was a strange beauty about the place, Beau had to admit. A beautiful wild steppe, surrounded by the foothills that marked the edge of the Ashkeeper Peaks. If this was a place of warriors, then she wondered just how blood-soaked these plains were.

‘It’s _really_ nice,’ Jester agreed.

‘He said that I had decimated my tribe,’ Yasha said. ‘I do not…For so long, I felt so much anger towards them, would gladly have slaughtered them all. There are several months from when I ran away, to when I woke up at the altar of the Stormlord, that I do not remember. I thought that perhaps this was just the time that I spent with…with Obann—’ She faltered significantly on Obann’s name, and gave a very nervous look to both Beau and Jester. When they didn’t say anything, she continued. ‘—But I suppose that at some point during that time, I also…killed much of my tribe.’

‘Do you think Obann was with you when that happened?’ Beau asked. Yasha raised startled eyes.

‘I don’t know. I don’t…I’m not sure whether it would be better or worse if he was there.’

‘It has to be worse, right?’ Jester asked. ‘Like…if he was there, if he was making you do it, then it’s not your fault. Like when you st—like in the Cathedral.’ She had been so very clearly about to say, “stabbed Beau,” but managed to stop herself just in time.

‘Maybe,’ Yasha admitted. ‘But if I wanted to kill them, and he helped me do that, then doesn’t that make me a terrible person?’

‘No.’ Both Beau and Jester spoke at the same time.

‘Yasha, they killed someone you loved. If it was me, if anyone killed you, or Jester, or anyone else in the Nein, I’d be wanting to kill them all too.’ Beau put a hand on Yasha’s shoulder, and strangely, it was that, more than what she had said, that seemed to provide Yasha with comfort.

‘Plus, if most of them are dead, then maybe it will be easier to find Zuala’s grave.’ Yasha looked doubtful, and Beau couldn’t blame her. If Yasha had massacred them, then they probably wouldn’t react too kindly to her presence, regardless of how few of them there were.

‘We should fix our other problem first,’ Yasha said. She gestured towards the wrapped sword that was rested across Jester’s lap. She stood, and without even waiting for a request for help, bodily lifted Beau to her feet. ‘I am sorry for making you run in your condition.’

‘Eh, that’s what Jester’s for,’ Beau said, in an off-hand sort of voice, and almost regretted it. The resulting look on Yasha’s face was so forlorn, that it just about broke Beau’s heart. She took Yasha’s hand in hers, and squeezed it. ‘You okay?’

‘I think so.’ Yasha didn’t sound very sure, and Beau didn’t blame her. They were a stone’s throw from the Iothia Moorlands, where Yasha had spent – and lost – so much of her life.

Jester took Yasha’s other hand.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get rid of this fucking sword.’


	6. Chapter 6

VI.

As Denethar examined _Skingorger_ , Yasha stayed at the back of the yurt. She was not sure if she trusted this man, but she trusted herself even less when near that accursed weapon.

‘This looks to be of Aruuth make,’ he told them. At their questioning looks, he added, ‘The orc village. It is not too far from here, a little way into the foothills. If there is a way to destroy the sword, they will know.’

‘That’s good news!’ Jester said, brightly. Yasha marveled at how positive she managed to stay, even in the direst of circumstances. She recalled a dark time, in the cells of the Iron Shepherds, how not even torture could dampen Jester’s spirit.

‘How far is not too far?’ Beau asked. She was sitting down in one of the stone chairs, and though she was trying not to let it show, Yasha knew that she was exhausted. She had been so brave, in amongst so much pain. Compared to her friends, Yasha was nothing but a coward.

‘Oh.’ Denethar sounded surprised. It made sense, of course. He had not known Beau as anything other than a shell of what she had once been. Had not seen her sprint up trees, and dash after pirate kings… ‘Eight or nine miles?’

‘Cool,’ Beau muttered, even though it was anything but.

‘It’s alright, Beau,’ Jester said, in that warm, genial voice of hers. ‘We can carry you!’

From the look on Beau’s face, that was very clearly the last thing that she wanted, but it wasn’t as though there was much of a choice.

They spent the night in Wrathfall, on the floor of Denethar’s yurt. He offered the use of his and his wife’s bed, but it was readily agreed that they did not want to infringe on their hospitality too much.

‘You have already done us a great kindness,’ Yasha told him. She still could not quite meet his eye.

Denethar gave a soft smile. ‘You always were one of the nice ones,’ he said. Yasha felt herself flush. She turned away, and busied herself setting up her bedroll. Before they settled off to sleep, Beau took off her overshirt, and the bandage around the middle, and they changed the poultice.

‘Is that from the sword?’ Denethar asked. He had clearly been hovering nearby, not wanting to intervene, but curiosity had apparently gotten the better of him.

‘Do you think that destroying the sword will help heal it?’ Jester asked. It both was not an answer at all, and was a very clear answer.

‘Hard to say.’ Denethar didn’t sound particularly positive. ‘Swords are a funny thing. Even ones that aren’t magical have a sort of magic to them.’ Beau and Jester both looked very confused by the answer, but Yasha understood what he was trying to say. Whenever she had a sword in her hand, she felt…powerful. It had been like that at first with _Skingorger_ , but then after stabbing Beau, it had only ever felt like an evil, cursed thing.

By contrast, the _Magician’s Judge_ made her feel less angry. No, that wasn’t right. There was always an anger to what she did…Maybe it was that with the _Judge_ , she felt a little more in control of her anger.

Jester, of course, got her magic from The Traveler, but she wondered if Beau felt the same way about her fists, about her staff.

Denethar prepared a breakfast of succulent, tender meat, and freshly baked bread. Yasha could see another half a dozen or so loaves set outside to rise. It was very nice bread. Maybe a little mealy. Yasha had never eaten bread when she’d lived in Xhorhas. It was difficult to grow wheat, or anything else that could be ground into a powder when the tribe moved around all the time.

‘Thank-you for your hospitality,’ Yasha said, in a stilted sort of voice, as they prepared to leave. She had realized that Beau and Jester had deferred to her, when deciding how to react in this place. If she had been distant, or angry, she was sure that they would have mirrored her.

Beau managed to walk the first mile or so without assistance. It was slow going, but it would have been just as slow for either Yasha or Jester to carry Beau, and that would have had the added downside of Beau becoming sullen and withdrawn. At least this way, Beau felt like she was trying, didn’t feel like the body that she had worked so hard to maintain, had let her down.

As they approached Aruuth, however, the terrain became more and more treacherous.

‘If you want, I can _Dimension Door_ us ahead a little bit,’ Jester said, brightly. Then, she frowned. ‘But it means that Yasha will have to walk.’

‘I am alright to walk,’ Yasha said, smiling slightly. She thought that maybe Jester _Dimension Door_ ing would make Beau feel less helpless than being carried.

‘How many times can you do it?’ Beau asked, skeptically.

‘Oh, let me think.’ Jester put a finger to her chin, and proceeded to do exactly that. ‘Maybe like…five times. It’s not enough to get us the _whooole_ way there, but we can sit down and take a break while we wait for Yasha!’

Beau was clearly reluctant, but thankfully, it did not take too much convincing. ‘We’ll see you soon, Yasha!’ Jester said brightly, before taking Beau gently by the arm, and disappearing.

Alone, Yasha was fast enough. Not as fast as Beau on a good day, but she could keep going for hours without rest. Even still, it took Yasha almost an hour to catch up to the other two. She’d just crested a hill, when she finally saw them sitting in the shadow of a large boulder, resting.

‘Yasha!’ Jester stood up, and started jumping up and down, trying to catch Yasha’s attention. Yasha gave a small smile that grew much bigger when she saw that Beau, too, was grinning.

‘I think she can see you, Jes,’ Beau said, loudly. She was sprawled out against the rock, casually enough that it would be easy to think that nothing was wrong.

Beau used her staff to get to her feet, ignoring the hand that Jester held out for her. She took one step, though, and grimaced. ‘Hey, Yash?’

‘Yes, Beauregard?’

‘Could I, uh…’ She looked a little abashed. ‘Could you carry me for a bit?’

‘Of course.’ In one swift, but careful movement, Yasha put one arm around Beau’s shoulders, and one arm under her knees, and lifted her up.

‘I’ll give you five gold later.’ Beau winked, but she still seemed sad. Yasha could understand why. It was one thing for Beau to fake an injury to be carried, but to have an injury for real was another matter altogether.

It took another two hours before they got to Aruuth, by which point the terrain became steeper, and rockier, and Yasha could see that the ground was mineral-rich.

They were greeted on the outskirts of the village by a tall half-orc wearing battered chain-mail armor. ‘Welcome,’ he said. ‘Denethar sent word ahead of your arrival. My name is Gao’mar.’

Yasha was grateful. It saved having another potentially awkward conversation.

‘Would you like us to look at the sword now?’

Yasha looked down at Beau, who had nodded off to sleep. She didn’t want to wake her, but nor did she want them to have the discussion without Beau being present.

‘Do you maybe have lodgings that we could rest in?’ Yasha asked. ‘We are happy to pay.’

Gao’mar waved off Yasha’s offer of payment, and let them to a small stone hut. The beds were also made of stone, so they once again set up their bedrolls. Or, more accurately, Jester set up the bedrolls, because Yasha didn’t want to put Beau down onto the cold stone.

Beau stirred when Yasha laid her in the bedroll; just barely long enough to smile, and go back to sleep. Jester’s brow furrowed in concern, as she put a hand to Beau’s shoulder, and healed her. ‘I think it’s getting worse,’ she whispered. ‘She’s been _reaaaally_ tired today.’

Yasha had noticed, but she wasn’t sure that she had wanted to admit to herself what it had meant. She looked across at the sword slung over Jester’s shoulder. ‘May I…Could I see the sword again?’

Jester gave a very worried look. ‘It is okay, Jester. I just…I had a thought.’

Jester unwrapped the sword, and set it down on the stone floor, well away from where Beau was sleeping. Yasha ran a hand over it, trying not to pull in the dark energy that it exuded. ‘Do you think _Dispel_ ling it would work?’ she asked Jester. Her fingers itched to grab the _Magician’s Judge_ , to slice the _Skingorger_ in two.

Somehow, though, she didn’t think that would work.

‘Oh man, I can’t believe we didn’t think of that.’ Jester frowned. ‘I used all my spells on _Dimension Door_ today. Maybe I could try it tomorrow?’

It was a good plan. At the very least, it was _a_ plan. Yasha was sure that the enchantment would be far too strong, that the same tools that had been used to make the sword would be required to unmake it.

It was a little cooler in Aruuth than it had been in Wrathfall, and they sort of ended up almost sharing the same bedroll, or at the very least, sharing body heat.

It was nice.

It had been so long since Yasha had slept next to someone. She had done with Beau in Zadash, of course, but the circumstances had been slightly different. This felt more like being with Zuala than anything else ever had. Maybe it was because they were back in Xhorhas, lying on the ground covered in furs, rather than in a bed.

Maybe it was the way that Jester’s hand had unconsciously wrapped around her waist, the way that Beau’s leg had splayed out over hers.

Yasha almost wanted to freeze the moment, to stay awake so that she could cherish it for a little while longer. She was tired enough, though, that she slept almost immediately.

As in Wrathfell, they were awoken in Aruuth by breakfast. Gao’mar brought what looked like a very large slab of pork, and some hard tack.

They were being very nice. It was strange. Yasha had always heard of Igrathad being filled with villages of cutthroat warriors.

Perhaps Denethar had vouched for them. Perhaps it had been her supposed…massacre that had convinced him. Yasha had been trying very hard to forget about what he had said. Trying very hard not to think about how that might change whatever they had to do _after_ destroying the sword.

Judging by the sound of hammers, and the constant tremors that she had somehow missed the previous night, they village was clearly a large mining operation. They would have made hundreds – thousands – of swords here, and yet only one of them mattered.

Yasha set the unwrapped _Skingorger_ on a large stone table, as they waited for the Orc chief to arrive. A sudden nervous tension filled the air. _What if they didn’t want to help_?

Surely, they wouldn’t have given them a room for the night, if that were the case. Surely, they would have been sent away already.

Loud, heavy footsteps signaled the arrival of a very tall, very well-armored orc. He wielded a great-axe that was almost as tall as Yasha was, and his tusks were as long as his fingers.

‘Well,’ he said, in a grinning sort of snarl. ‘It looks like you’ve found my sword.’


	7. Chapter 7

VII

‘It’s not your sword!’ Jester said, angrily, before Yasha could do anything. ‘Anyway, we came here to destroy it.’

The orc gave an amused sort of chuckle. ‘This sword was stolen from the great tribe of the Aruuth-Uk, many years ago. I thank you for returning it.’

Yasha’s hand went to the _Magician’s Judge_ , but she did not draw it just yet. ‘This sword is cursed. It is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocents. We _will_ be destroying it here.’

‘Marak…’ Gao’mar said, slowly. ‘Denethar has given them his hospitality.’

The orc that Yasha assumed was Marak sneered. ‘I do not reciprocate the hospitality of the humans. This sword was stolen from the Aruuth-Uk, and to the Aruuth-Uk, it will return.’

‘We’ll fight you for it,’ Beau said, suddenly, and all eyes turned to look at her. She looked startled, as though she hadn’t really thought beyond that proclamation.

Marak laughed. ‘ _You_ , would fight me, little one? I would cut you in half with a single blow.’ He took a step forward, and Yasha cut him off.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I will fight you. One on one. Your weapon-’ She nodded to the great-axe. ‘Versus mine.’ She drew the _Magician’s Judge_.

‘Yasha,’ Beau said. Her voice was pained, but Yasha didn’t dare look. Neither did Marak.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘If you win, we will allow you to destroy the sword. If you lose, then you will surrender the sword to me.’

Yasha didn’t like that. Not because she thought that she was going to lose, but because the consequences of losing were so great. If they lost the sword, then Beau was in a lot of trouble.

Looking very sullen, Gao’mar led them out to the center of the village, where a brick-ringed pit lay. Like the outskirts of the town, the dirt here looked rich with iron, and Yasha could see old bloodstains that had not yet washed away.

‘Yash, you don’t need to do this for me,’ Beau said. She sounded terrified, and Yasha wondered why she had said anything in the first place, if she didn’t want Yasha to fight. Then, she saw the look in Beau’s eyes, and it almost broke her heart. Beau had been expecting – had been wanting? – to fight herself. Because she would have rather died on the battlefield than subject herself to this slow death by gradual weakening.

Yasha put her hand to Beau’s shoulder. ‘I will not let you get hurt ever again,’ she said. It was perhaps an empty promise – they spent so much of their lives going into battle, that Beau would undoubtedly be hurt again – but Beau gave a grimacing sort of nod just the same.

She and Jester stepped back to where there were several roughly hewn stone benches surrounding the pit. ‘Do you have a diamond?’ Yasha heard Beau ask in a very low voice. She didn’t wait to see what Jester’s response was, instead stepping into the ring to face a menacing looking Marak.

She had been here before.

Not _here_ here, but so many other places like this. Using battle to settle differences was an old favorite of the Dolorav Tribe, and Yasha had settled many, many differences at the point of a sword.

There were some things that she had done with a sword, though, that she would much rather forget. Thoughts of Beau, of the monks of the Cobalt Soul, of everyone who had died at the rusted edge of _Skingorger_ filled her head as she went into a rage.

Marak was no pushover. He sliced at Yasha twice with the great-axe, and though she could feel the blade slice through her skin below the breastplate, the pain was muted, the thump, thump, thump of her heart amidst the rage the only thing she could hear.

He parried her first strike with the _Magician’s Judge_ , but was not quick enough to dodge the second. It somehow slipped through the plates of his armor, and pierced the skin of his abdomen. The laugh that had come with the parry disappeared.

The orc was strong, maybe as strong as Yasha was. But, he clearly had not endured anywhere near the amount of pain that she had. After four or five more swipes, he was slowing to a stagger, still not near defeat, but definitely getting closer.

_It is time to bring out the big sword_ , Yasha thought.

She thrust her arms to the side, and willed her wings to burst from her shoulders. She felt them erupt with a sharp pain, the same pain that always accompanied spreading her wings, and the action was met with a general gasp from the audience. Even Beau and Jester were…why were they looking so confused?

Then Yasha saw it. She felt the air rush past her as her wings gently fluttered. Not dark, skeletal wings, but white feathered ones.

_The chains are broken_. The voice in her head was some both hers, and not hers.

The Stormlord was at her side.

With a loud, primal, guttural yell, Yasha charged forward, slashing downwards with her sword. Marak did not get out of the way in time, the point of it splitting the armor, and slicing a deep gouge in his chest.

He dropped to his knee, still hanging on, but by a thread. Then, he staggered back to his feet, and swung the axe wildly. It missed Yasha by almost a foot.

When Yasha swung this time, she swung with the flat of the blade, knocking him to the ground, but not doing any more damage to his vital organs.

She was not going to kill someone else who didn’t deserve it.

When Marak did not arise, she stepped out of the ring into Beau and Jester’s waiting arms.

…

They took the sword to the forge, Jester bouncing around happily. ‘It’s almost over!’ she said. She put an arm around Beau, who tried very hard not to wince.

The tiefling had healed Yasha’s wounds immediately on her exit from the pit, and, after a moment’s hesitation, had gone to heal the orc’s as well. He looked a little ashamed that he had been beaten, but he did not argue that the fight had been won fairly.

‘It has been a long time since someone has defeated the head of the Aruuth-Uk clan in single combat. Tell me, angel, which tribe do you hail from?’

Yasha looked at Beau and Jester before she answered. Beau felt her heart beating fast, like the trampling of hooves. ‘My tribe is known as the Mighty Nein.’

Jester put her hands on the sword, and cast _Dispel Magic_ at the highest level that she could muster.

Beau hadn’t been sure if she would feel it or not. Magic was one of those things she didn’t really know much about. The history of magic, sure, but magic itself…Some things were magically significant, and that was about as much as she could tell. So when she felt a shuddering sort of shiver rush through her, she couldn’t quite tell whether it was just her body responding, or if some magical link had been severed.

‘Okay,’ Jester said. ‘It’s gone. It’s just…It’s just a sword now. We can throw it into the crucible.’

Neither Beau nor Jester moved. This was Yasha’s…This was for Yasha.

She took the sword by its rusted handles, grimacing at the touch of it. Then, there were a couple of seconds or so where it didn’t seem like she was going to throw it in at all, but then she hefted it in one swift movement.

Nothing happened.

Then, as though in slow motion, the sword started to glow red-hot. Over a span of minutes, the glow spread to the rest of the sword, before it turned to liquid.

‘Is that it?’ Jester asked, finally. ‘Oh, man, I was sort of expecting it to like… _explode_ , or something!’ She turned to Beau. ‘How do you feel, is the wound healed?’

_Oh, shit_. Beau put a hand to her stomach, and winced. It still fucking hurt, and moreover, it still fucking hurt to breath. She ripped off her shirt, and together, they unwound the bandages.

The wound was still there, as disgusting looking and as pulsing as it had been right after it happened. Jester put her hand to Beau’s shoulder, and cast _Cure Wounds_.

Jester’s healing had always felt distinctively…mischievous. Not in a malicious sort of way, just in the way that made it very clear that the Traveler had his fingers in things. This time was no different. The magic rushed through Beau, in a way that no other heal had, since she’d been stabbed. It reached every corner of her body, filled her, consumed her. There was a flash of white, and an intense feeling…not pain, but…relief. Her hand gripped Jester’s, as she let out a guttural yell.

Beneath her hand, she could feel scar tissue.

It still hurt to breathe, there was still no small amount of pain, but the wound…the wound looked as though it was weeks old, instead of months. The scar was a pinkish white color, far paler than the rest of her skin, and far more textured.

‘Beau?’ Beau could feel a hand on each of her shoulders, one a little cooler, one a little larger. ‘How do you feel?’ Beau stood, and felt a minor twinge through her body. Without warning (without even realizing that she was going to do it), she kicked up into a handstand, and tried a few push-ups for good measure.

They weren’t easy, and they weren’t pain free, but at the very least she wasn’t collapsing in agony. ‘Alright,’ she said. ‘I think I’m good.’

Everything seemed a little brighter after that. The day was the same as it had been before they had destroyed the sword, and yet the sky seemed a little bluer, the grass a little greener. Beau didn’t even bother to wipe the grin from her face.

The walk back to Wrathfell went by in a breeze. Though Marak did not begrudge them for their victory, or for the destruction of the sword, they decided that on the whole, Wrathfell was the friendlier place to spend the night. From there, they could head east, into the marshlands.

They stopped for a break next to the same boulders they had on the way over. Just for fun, Beau climbed one of them, and sat cross-legged on the top.

‘Beeeau,’ Jester said, protracting out the final sound in Beau’s name. ‘Just because you’re okay now doesn’t mean you have to go to places where we can’t reach.’

Beau poked out her tongue. ‘So _Dimension Door_ up,’ Beau told her. Jester sighed, and disappeared in a flash, appearing next to Beau.

‘Oh, shit!’ Jester said. ‘Sorry Yasha.’

‘It is alright,’ Yasha said, in a very soft voice. ‘I think I can climb up.’

‘You should _fly_ up!’ Jester said. ‘We saw your new wings, don’t they look soooo _hot_ , Beau?’

Beau couldn’t deny that they looked hot. More than that, though, they gave Yasha a sort of confidence in herself, a sort of strength that she had not had since…well, since before Molly had died.

Smiling, Yasha spread her arms, and unfurled her wings. They flapped a few times, uncertainly, before she lifted off the ground, and flew towards the top of the boulder, landing a little haphazardly. ‘Whoah,’ she said, but she was grinning a little. ‘That was, ah…pretty cool.’

‘It looked _so_ cool.’ Jester looked to Beau. ‘Come on, Beau, tell her how cool it looked.’

Beau grinned. ‘Yasha,’ she said. ‘That was the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.’


	8. Chapter 8

VIII

Yasha was nervous in Wrathfall, and Beau didn’t exactly blame her. After all, one of the reasons that they had come this far, apart from destroying the sword, was to…well, to bring Yasha a bit of closure.

It had seemed a prospect that was so much further away before they’d actually destroyed it. Now, faced with the prospect of seeing her wife’s grave for the first time, Yasha had gone quiet.

Without even discussing it, they slept very close together. Beau was thrilled to be able to go a night without waking unable to breathe, was able to roll onto her stomach without an agonizing pain shooting through her body. It still _hurt_ to breathe, of course, still _hurt_ to move, but it was a much more manageable pain. It didn’t help, of course, that sometime during the night, both Yasha and Jester had, at different points in time, pulled her closer. This “having a family” thing could be infuriatingly intimate at times.

For the first time in what felt like months, when Beau woke up in the morning, she did a workout. Her muscles had atrophied somewhat, and she only managed a fraction of her normal pull-ups and push-ups, but it was much better than it had been even a few days ago.

‘That was pretty cool,’ Jester said, just as Beau was finishing the last push-up. Her arms were aching, and her abs were aching, and everything was aching, but it was a nice, pleasant ache that she normally associated with a good workout. ‘Wasn’t it, Yasha?’

Yasha, who had been staring off into the distance, jerked at the sound of her name. ‘Ah, yes,’ she said, ‘It was very impressive.’ Beau got the distinct impression that Yasha had no idea what she was calling impressive. Beau flexed just a little bit, trying to make it very, very obvious. It definitely wasn’t her imagination when Yasha’s eyes fixated just a little too long on her bicep.

Breakfast was a much more positive affair than it had been the previous day. Beau found herself laughing at Jester’s jokes, and scarfing down far more food than was probably considered wise. The pain she felt afterwards had nothing to do with the scar.

After breakfast, Jester messaged Fjord, updating the rest of the group on their progress. ‘And now we’re going to go and find Yasha’s wife’s grave,’ she finished with, on the third message. Yasha noticeably flinched.

‘You alright?’ Beau asked, softly. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? We don’t have to go, if you don’t want to.’

Yasha shook her head. ‘No, ah…No, I want to go. I’m just worried about what I might find.’

Whether she was talking about the grave, or about the tribe in general, Beau didn’t know. Around ten a.m, they started off, slowly walking east towards the Iothia Moorlands. Yasha kept to the tail of their tiny group, more and more trepidation crossing her face as they grew closer and closer. Beau could feel the ground beneath her feet becoming spongy, and moist.

‘So where do your old tribe live, Yasha?’ Jester asked. In the distance, Beau could see the southern tip of what she was pretty sure was the Vermaloc Wildwood, and beyond it, the Penumbra Range.

‘We, ah…we were very nomadic,’ Yasha said, frowning. ‘They could be anywhere in this general area.’ There was a long pause. ‘I think I may be able to track them. At this time of year, they are usually a little closer to the Lake. I think they will have people scouting, so they may find us.’

They adjusted course to the south slightly, nonetheless, and spent a wet, uncomfortable night in the Moorlands. The ground was wet enough that they couldn’t get a fire to light, even with Jester casting _Sacred Flame_. Beau put her goggles on, and stayed up for first watch. Sadly, with only three of them there, and no Frumpkin or tiny hut to assist, watch was a very lonely experience.

Close to midnight, she heard the first noise. It seemed like nothing at first; out in the middle of places like this, strange noises were common enough. Then, she heard it again, only closer. A squelching sort of sound, like a boot in mud.

Beau stood immediately, moving to wake Jester and Yasha. The tiniest sound caught her ear once again, this time a much more familiar sound.

She caught the arrow just before it pierced her neck.

Beau dove to the ground, reaching out to shake the others awake as she did. ‘Waaaazza?’ Jester’s voice was thick with sleep. ‘Is it already time for my watch?’

‘Stay down,’ Beau hissed. A second arrow hit the ground next to them. That, at least, sent both of them into overdrive. 

Yasha was on her feet in an instant, _Magician’s Judge_ in one hand, and a bright blue ball of light in the other. It was so fast that Beau hadn’t even seen her cast it.

The figure, whoever they were, came to a halt. From the light of Yasha’s spell, Beau could see a tall woman, with long, braided hair, wearing furs, and carrying a longbow. She seemed to recognize Yasha.

‘Shooting Star,’ Yasha said, evenly, and it took Beau a few seconds to realize that she was talking to the other woman.

‘Orphanmaker.’

‘It has been a long time. The last time I saw your face, Orphanmaker, you had just murdered the Skyspear.’ The tension was tight enough that it would have snapped at the merest jostle, but Yasha hadn’t readied her sword just yet. ‘If we had been braver, we would have killed her much sooner.’

The look on Yasha’s face was unreadable. It was weird. Yasha was generally pretty good at wearing her emotions on her sleeves, but this…Beau didn’t know what this was.

‘Are you here to finish the job, Orphanmaker?’ The voice was steely, almost as though she was resigned to her fate. ‘Kill the rest of us.’

‘I’m not here to kill anyone,’ Yasha said. ‘I am here to visit my wife’s grave. I…I do not want to cause any trouble.’

The woman stared at her, clearly skeptical, though if Beau wasn’t mistaken, there was a hint of sympathy in her eyes. ‘I do not know the exact location of the graves of traitors to the Dolarov tribe,’ she said. ‘But they are somewhere on the edge of the Wildwood, marked by stones. South of Dumaran, the hobgoblin city.’ She sheathed her bow. ‘If anyone asks, I did not see you here this day, Orphanmaker.’ She waited a few seconds, to see if Yasha would say anything, and when Yasha didn’t, she left. It was…almost anti-climactic.

‘She was nice,’ Jester said, in a sort of voice that clearly suggested she was trying to engage Yasha. ‘On the edge of the Wildwood, that’s more than we had before.’

They did not get much sleep after that.

Beau stayed up for a little while longer, but even after Jester took over the watch, she was too uneasy to fall asleep. Judging by Yasha’s breathing, she hadn’t even tried to sleep.

They started moving at first light. Beau didn’t trust that Shooting Star hadn’t alerted the rest of the tribe, and clearly, neither did Yasha.

‘Hey Yasha?’ Beau asked, as they retied their bedrolls to their packs, ‘That woman – Shooting Star – who…I mean, was she someone important to you?’

Yasha gave Beau a curious sort of look. ‘She was the person that I would have been betrothed to, had I not married Zuala. The person that the Skyspear would have chosen for me.’

Oh. Well, that was awkward.

They headed towards the Vermaloc Wildwood, and did not see any indication that Yasha’s old tribe was anywhere nearby. Shooting Star must have been good on her word.

‘How do we know where she actually is?’ Beau asked, once the trees of the Vermaloc were a little closer in sight. Even here, where it was still marshy, there were dozens of them dotted all over the place. Zuala could have been buried under any one of them.

‘Um, Yasha?’ Jester’s voice was small, as though she didn’t really want to say what she was going to say. ‘Do you think…do you think Zua—do you think they would have buried her with her wedding ring? Because I can cast _Locate Object_ …’

‘I don’t know,’ Yasha admitted. She sounded very far away. ‘You could try.’

Jester seemed to take this as permission, and began casting the spell. ‘Oh,’ she said, after a few seconds. ‘I can’t feel it anywhere.’ She seemed more disappointed that she wasn’t able to help Yasha than she was that the spell had failed.

‘Well, she said it was this direction,’ Beau pointed out. ‘Maybe if we keep walking, you’ll pick it up.’

They entered the Wildwood proper, and began walking north. Jester cast the spell two more times, before— ‘I’ve got it!’ she said, suddenly. ‘I know where it is.’

They were well out of the marshlands, now, a little way south of Dumaran, the hobgoblin city that Yasha’s former tribesmate had mentioned. Beau was pretty sure she’d read about Dumaran in a book at one point or another.

Jester led them to a tree. It was a nice tree. A little gnarled, a little rotting. There was a large, grey stone at the foot of it.

Yasha dropped to her knees. Already, her eyes were wet with tears. ‘Zuala,’ she murmured, and put her hand atop the stone. ‘I am sorry it took me so long to get here. I…’ She let her head rest against the stone. ‘I was afraid.’

There was a very long silence. Beau and Jester shared a look. This wasn’t their moment. They shouldn’t be here.

‘We’ll just be standing over there,’ Jester whispered. She grabbed Beau by the shoulder, and pulled her away, and for once in her life, Beau didn’t resist.

…

For a very long while, Yasha didn’t speak.

Though she did not have the magic to see beneath the ground, to see what was buried there, somehow, she knew beyond shadow of a doubt, that this was where Zuala was buried. It was something deeper than magic, something from the very core of her being.

‘I have something for you,’ Yasha said, finally. She rummaged in her bag, and pulled out the leather-bound book of manners that Mollymauk had given her, all those years ago. It was thick with the flowers she had pressed into it. ‘I think you would have like Mollymauk.’ A pause. ‘I think you would have liked all of them.’

She took out the flowers, one by one, and laid them over the top of the grave. It had been years, since the ground had been disturbed, years since they had buried Zuala here. So much had happened in that time, and yet now, it was as though no time at all had passed. ‘I love you with all my heart, and I…’ She choked back a sob. ‘I am sorry that I was too much of a coward to save you.’ Yasha looked back to where Beau and Jester were standing, both watching her silently. ‘I can never let that happen again. I _will_ never let that happen again.’

She stayed there for a little while longer, and told Zuala about all the things that had happened, all the things that Yasha had done. ‘I have seen so much of the world, now. So much more than our little swamp. Met so many new people. Killed the demon that stole my mind.’ Another pause. ‘I do not remember it, but they say that I avenged your death, too.’

She put the last flower on top of the stone. It was a beautiful red and purple thing, that, when she’d picked it, Molly had gotten confused, thinking she had picked it for him. Now, the only thing left in the book was a single blade of grass. That was for something else.

Finally, though, Yasha stood, and said one final goodbye to the woman that she had loved so dearly. The woman that she would see again one day, but not for a very long time.

For the first time in so long, her heart was full. The sword was gone, and maybe one day soon, Orphanmaker would be gone, too.

It was Yasha that made her way back to her friends, her steps a little lighter. ‘I think…I think I have gotten everything that I came for,’ she said, but then, her attention was pulled by one last thing.

There was a bright blue flower, peeking out from in among the grass. Yasha reached in and plucked it with as delicate fingers as she could muster.

She put the flower in the book, and closed it.

‘Is that for Zuala, too?’ Jester asked. ‘Maybe we could like…go and collect a lot more and then come back here, and give them to her.’

‘These are not for Zuala,’ Yasha said. She looked over at the grave. ‘Zuala…is not there anymore.’ She put a hand to her heart. ‘She is here. She will always be here, but…I cannot live in the past anymore.’

‘Ooooh,’ Jester said, grinning. ‘Are they for someone _else_ , Yasha? Do you have a cruuuush?’ Yasha felt herself come over flush, and she cast her eyes in the completely opposite direction, than look at either Beau or Jester. Unfortunately, this seemed only to spur Jester on. ‘Oh my gosh! You _do_ have a crush. Which one of us is it?’

‘Jester, leave her alone.’ Beau sounded mildly exasperated, but she was smiling.

‘Yasha, I promise I won’t get upset if it’s not me.’ Jester blinked her eyes innocently. ‘But I mean, blue is _obviously_ me, right?’

‘Yeah, Jester, there’s absolutely no-one else you can think of who might be associated with the color blue.’ Beau rolled her eyes.

‘Come on, Jes, if you message Essek now, we might be able to get on a boat before they start those peace talks.’ She gave Yasha a wink, having successfully distracted Jester.

Yasha felt her heart flutter just a little. But no. This was not the time for any of that.

‘How is the scar?’ she asked Beau, in an effort to distract herself, now. ‘Has your breathing improved?’

‘Doing pretty good,’ Beau said. She put a hand to Yasha’s arm. ‘Sorry you had to destroy your sword and everything. But what was it you said? Something about not living in the past anymore? I guess that doesn’t really apply to swords.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. There are some scars that stay with us for a very long time.’ Yasha put a hand on Beau’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry that I hurt you.’

‘Nah.’ Beau waved a dismissive hand. ‘Don’t worry about it. Scars are dope.’ She was clearly trying to appease Yasha, but the fact that she was willing to do that meant more to Yasha than anything else in the world.

Obann was behind her. Skingorger was behind her. Zuala wasn’t behind her, but was at the very least inside of her. In front of her, though, was everything else in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey thanks for reading, this was mostly just me cleaning out my WIP folder but somehow it ended up at like 20,000 words. Them's the breaks.
> 
> Next up, more Once Upon a Time in Exandria, and hopefully sometime very soon, a Beauyasha vampires/vampire hunter AU. Keep an eye out.


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